How time flies…

Its 11 PM…I am about to bid good-bye the day that I still look forward to every year…..My birthday (who doesn’t? – not mine, but for their own)

But today, I spent some time thinking about how things change with time. Birthdays, for example, have changed a lot in the past 25 years… (No, I am not 25, but the birthdays before that hardly count :))

When I was in school (primary), birthdays were mostly about the number of children coming for your birthday party. My family wasn’t big on having parties with many children around; our birthdays were celebrated low-key surrounded by siblings and parents. But I remember going for my classmates’ parties and I think that the motto was “The more, the merrier”.

Going on to birthdays in high school (after we moved to India), it was mostly about the excitement of collecting the daily post to see how many of my friends have sent me cards. The cards would start coming in a week before the birthday and would continue to come till almost a week after the birthday. I remember keeping count to see whether I had made more friends than last year based on the number of cards. A phone call to the home landline on the birthday would be the icing of the cake.

Birthdays in college were again about cards and maybe even some small gifts from friends. Being in hostel and living on a meager pocket money which included TA, we couldn’t afford any big gifts, so a bookmark or a small gift item would be the special something to get from and give to special friends. Letters and cards from classmates, hostel mates, friends who weren’t in this college…that was the time of abundance. 

It was towards the end of college that we got ourselves email IDs and promised to mail each other long after we left college. So the first year or two after college, birthdays were less about postal cards but more about emails from friends and especially e-cards. Hallmark, Bluemountain…you name it, we’ve been there sending e-cards on birthdays and sending “thank you” cards as a response to e-cards received. 

Then we got jobs…life started revolving around new people, new friends. With salaries, we could now afford to buy better gifts and we were back to sending postal cards, only this time they cost more than 10 bucks and we didn’t feel bad buying them. Along with the job came the mobile phone, and birthday wishes started coming in the form of SMS and mobile calls. 

This trend continues, only now, we check social networking sites to get our birthday wishes. I spent a good time on Facebook today, checking messages from friends and family and replying to them. The feeling of being remembered is definitely nice, but I do have to say that I miss the old times. I mean, I am not going to log in to FB after 10 years to check the messages that I got today…but even now, I can open my cupboard and take out my collection of cards that I have collected since school days and see what my friends and dear ones wrote to me years ago. 

I think we should all try and make it a point and send cards (actual cards) at least to our dearest friends and family. We all know how it feels to get a card and open it and read everything in that card…the admiring of the pictures and the colors used for writing, the stickers used (we girls do that :))… No e-card, e-message or SMS is ever going to come close to that feeling. And as usual…I really do hope and pray that our children will once know this nice feeling.

My elder sister

I think everyone around me has fond memories of summer vacations, spent at their paternal or maternal homes, along with lots of cousins to play with....memories of games and pranks and meals and lazy afternoons.....

Those things did not come easy for me. The fact that I was the 2nd child of the youngest son to my grandparents, and thereby the 26th of 28 cousins didn't help much. I had no one at my same age and my other cousins spent more time with the others since most of them were either 1) too old and had children of their own or 2) all in Bangalore. The only ones around me were my own siblings and I had already spent enough time with them throughout the year. Holidays in India were meant to be spent with the other cousins.

This post is for my cousin....L-Jo, the one I could say I am closest to. No, not J-Lo, but L-Jo. :-)

The very first memory that I have about her is me complaining to her mother, my aunt, that she preferred playing with the other cousins and not with me (I must have been around 6 or younger) and her getting a few beatings to "be nice and play" with me. She still complaints about this to no end. The "games" I wanted to play were simple. We used to wear straw mat sarees. Not that you could wear them like sarees, but then....after the beatings, she'd play pretty much anything I wanted to.


We actually got close after my family settled back in India and she came to spend her summer holidays with us....all 2 months. With no other cousins for her to choose over me....we bonded over never-ending chats at night that lasted till my mother would warn us from the next room. We'd sleep in in the morning, trying to avoid any work my father would surely throw at us.

We enacted scenes from Hindi movies...you know the ones....heroine receives upsetting letter from hero, runs to her room, throws herself on the bed and cries....those ones....This particular scene was repeated a zillion times, running from a 10-15 feet distance and finally landing on our bed.

Finally, when I completed my academics, I moved to the city and stayed with my aunt for 2 years (of which a short stint I stayed in a PG - more about that later). We continued bonding over weekend shopping, evening walks, stories, dumb songs.... We went to GK Vales to get my "proposal photos" taken - those are still hidden and apart from my parents and Lindo, she's the only other person on earth to have seen them. We learned to drape sarees and learned to walk to church in them...we were each other's company on Valentine's day...

For me, she's my big sister cum best friend. Okay, not much of a big sister but the age gap is perfect and we get along so well. If someone was to continuously listen to our conversations, they'd get bored after say 3-4 days. Mainly because we still laugh about the same things, the same stories, the same songs.

Its been a while since I have been in touch, but I remembered her a few days back and missed her lots and I thought I should share this with you all.

Love you L-Jo....God bless everyone with a relative like you.

Things that happen...

So i am back....few things happened in the meanwhile...Here's one of those things that was something I'd categorise as "Major" in my life...

The day Tim fell.

20th July 2010. It was a rainy evening. Lindo and I returned from office and after our usual hugs and welcome backs, we were collecting clothes and bags and tiffin boxes to call it a night and go home "upstairs". Tim and Nathan were so excited about us being back (as usual) and were going crazy running up and down (as usual) and that's when Tim fell (as usual), but the unusual thing was that he hit his head on the sofa leg.

I was in the kitchen, chatting with Mom-in-law, when the commotion started in the living room....i saw Lindo carrying Tim to the sink....Oh-oh.....not good, i said to myself and ran....i ran to see my little Timothy bleeding. His right eyebrow was cut. And there was quite a flow of blood. Lindo was washing off the blood....i ran for ice to keep on the wound.

Funny enough, Lindo had just recently attended a first aid training at office and had learned as my Dad confirmed later...first thing to do with a wound is to press against it to stop the bleeding....but then, when your own child is bleeding, who has a calm enough mind to think about what you learned?

We left Nathan at home and immediately took him to the doctor. Considering the time and the traffic on Hosur road, we decided to go to a hospital on Begur road itself. Tim had stopped crying by then and was holding a kerchief to the wound....on reaching there, they immediately asked us to go to the casuality...There, a doctor came and checked on him and told me what i was dreading....the wound needed stitches. Its bad enough that he fell and cut himself....stitches too??? I asked if he'd at least get an anesthetic, but no.....it didn't make sense, they said.

It's funny how prayers automatically come to you at times you need support....as I saw my 'baby' lying there, waiting for his stitches, I started reciting "Hail Mary"s....who else could give a mother strength to watch her child in pain than Mother Mary herself. I am sure that Lindo's parents were also praying at home...because when they came to do the stitches, the doctor came with a few attendants who were all holding him....his legs, his head, his hands....i was holding his feet....so that he wouldn't thrash around too much.

Surprise of all surprises was that Tim didn't move when the doctor started with the stitches. He winced in pain, his eyes filled up.....but nothing else. My boy was given strength by no one else but God. When the second stitch started, he said "It's hurting...." Everyone was surprised....I felt ashamed thinking about what a drama i make when i have to get injections.

Stitches over and he got an injection too.....he stayed home for the next 3 days and the weekend and was back in school on Monday. The stitches were removed last week....all's well. Just a little scar to remind us of what happened. He happily narrates his 'accident' if asked to....Nathan thinks that he's something like a war hero.

The photo was taken by an unknown friend's friend @ a resort at Bannerghatta and sent to me by his colleague who is my friend :) Thanks a lot, dear anonymous photographer....it's a beautiful picture. I love the concentration on his face.